“The participation of all Member States at the highest level is indispensable for the transcendental gathering to achieve its full potential,” Miguel D’Escoto told the 192-member Assembly. “I earnestly believe that this is an opportunity the world cannot afford not to take advantage of.”

Mr. D’Escoto is tasked with organizing the UN High-Level Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Development, which was called for by participants at a financing for development meeting held in Qatar in late 2008.

He emphasized that the outcome document that leaders will adopt at the end of the 1-3 June meeting must reflect the aspirations of the Member States. “In particular, it must speak to the hundreds of millions across the globe who have no other forum in which they can express their unique and often divergent perspectives.”

Presenting the draft outcome document to the Assembly, Mr. D’Escoto said he tried his best to reflect the concerns and expectations expressed to him by the government officials he met with in recent weeks as he travelled to different countries.

“This draft outcome document may be the only document that the heads of State and government may see prior to coming to the June meeting,” he later told a news conference.

“This is the document that will make it or break it,” he said, noting that the text will be the basis on which leaders will decide whether to take the June meeting seriously or to cast it as just another kind of “international charade” that will come to nothing.

“I am hopeful that we will be instrumental in bringing tranquillity to the world that is in the midst of much anxiety caused by many converging crises, but mainly by the financial and economic turmoil.”

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Assembly President urges Latin America, Caribbean to support economic summit